Early Tuesday morning the Israeli Defense Forces raided the offices of three Palestinian non-governmental organizations in Ramallah. From 1:05 a.m. to 3 a.m. eight armored Jeeps full of Israeli soldiers came to the offices of Addameer and the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network, located in the same building. Soldiers were seen ransacking the offices, by the landlord and his son. Around the same time the union of Palestinian women’s committee in Qadura Refugee Camp was raided.

Israeli soldiers have raided the offices of three civil society organisations in the heart of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Entering before dawn on Tuesday, troops wrenched open the doors of the Women’s Union, the Palestinian NGO Network and Addameer, an advocate for Palestinians in Israeli jails.

The raids were the first of their kind in a Palestinian city since the West Bank government won an initiative at the United Nations General Assembly on November 29 which recognised a de facto Palestinian state.

At 3 am this morning, 11 December 2012, the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights office was raided by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Four laptops, one hard disk and a video camera were taken among other materials. The IOF destroyed the office; desks, ransacked filing cabinets and files and scattered files around the office. At this moment, we are not clear as to what has been confiscated, but in the coming days we will know more about the level of destruction and damage. This is the first raid by the IOF since 2002, when the Addameer office was raided during the invasion of Ramallah.

The offices of the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committee and the Palestinian NGO Network were also raided and ransacked last night. Addameer condemns this attack on human rights and civil society organizations, and sees it as an attempt to cripple solidarity with the prisoners movement.

UPDATED STATEMENT

12 The Israeli Occupation Forces raided three non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Ramallah at 3 am this morning, including Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. Five computers and a camera were stolen from Addameer, as well as a number of legal files, pictures and posters of prisoners and detainees on hunger strike. Ironically, this attack coincides with the 64th anniversary of the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Addameer believes that this brutal assault is part of the constant targeting of the association’s staff and mission to defend Palestinian political prisoners.

While inside of Addameer’s office, the Israeli military tore posters of hunger strikers from a 2011 campaign where over 1,800 prisoners fasted in protest of administrative detention. As well, case files for individual prisoners were rummaged through and left open on the desk of an advocacy officer.

“This raid means that they [the Israeli military] have their eye on us for being in solidarity with the prisoners on hunger strike,” said advocacy officer Randa Wahbe.

Speaking to Mondoweiss, Wahbe said that all of the content in the case files concerning could have been legally obtained by the Israeli authorities through a military court request. This raid comes as the latest obstacle to Addameer’s work for prisoners’ right, following last month’s arrest of a researcher and a recent travel ban placed on the organization’s chairman.

About Allison Deger and Philip Weiss

Allison Deger is an Assistant Editor for Mondoweiss.net. Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.

33 Responses

Waiting to cut out the deadwood.
Waiting to clean up the cities.
Waiting to follow the worms.
Waiting to reach for their rifles.
Waiting to shoot down the Arabs.
Waiting to smash in their windows
And kick in their doors.
Waiting for the final solution
To strengthen the State.
Waiting to follow the worms.

What’s the excuse this time Mondoweiss faithful?
If one relied on reporting from Mondoweiss then it would be understandable that little is know about the recent violent nature of Palestinian protests, as no mention has been made of the multitude of violent stone throwing incidents and rioting that have taken hold in the West Bank.
So there goes the non-violent protest lie. The Friday so called non-violent protests at Billin served their purpose. They used the lie to get what they wanted at the UN. The bluff is clearly exposed. And the blind Mondoweiss faithful shout “more, more”.

Lacking the observation powers to notice that the Israeli soldiers against whom stones are thrown are in occupied territory, or the brains to deduce that if they don’t want stones thrown at them, all they have to do is retreat behind the lines that most of the world accepts as the border of Israel, i.e., the greenline, giladg must believe that ransacking a NGO office is just one of the ways Israelis demonstrate their peaceful attitude towards the indigenous inhabitants of the land they occupy. Hasn’t he said so many times, Israelis just want to live in peace with Palestinians? That’s why they ransack those offices and also use them for live target practice.

Your logic is flawed. Recent evidence of this are the rockets, not stones, lobbed over into Israel, even though Israel uprooted all the settlements in Gaza. Further evidence is the waging of wars against the Jewish State when there were no settlements in the West Bank in 1967.
So although your words may sound nice, they are disconnected to the reality of the Middle East.

@giladg, exactly how many rockets were lobbed from Israel (or Israeli warcraft) into Gaza in the period since the settlements were uprooted, and how many Israeli soldiers have made incursions into Gaza, and how many Gazan children were killed? Please research this, and explain why

I take it your definition of violence is something like, “rockets, except those lobbed by Israel” and “killing people or taking property at gunpoint, unless if done by Israeli soldiers” and above all “throwing rocks in protest at soldiers who are involved in the taking of property at gunpoint, beating and killing innocent civilians and general ethnic cleansing”

Gilad – you cast the IDF as dangerously incompetent. Per you, in response to Palestinian violence against Israelis on the West Bank, the Israeli military violently attacked non-violent organizations.
What is the IDF trying to accomplish: provoke hunger-striking prisoners into a full-blown prison riot?

Of course, Israel sees any sign of independence or peaceful resistance as violence against the Israeli state.

For the same reason we talk about the US Dept of Defense — an organization that has launched one aggressive war after another since it was named in the 1940s. Actually, it is difficult to find even one war where they were defending the US, even if a few of them were in legitimate interests of the US.

Point taken. But nevertheless there are no American Defence Forces or Dutch Defense Forces. My point is that the name IDF is part of a well-planned vocabulary that contributes to the non-existing status of victim. It’s propaganda.

From that respect I would prefer to read about ‘Israeli army’ instead of IDF — as this is one of the easy things we can do ourselves to counter the false image that is presented to us. We’re simply not accepting it anymore.

Before the US realized the importance of words the US Dept. of Defense was aptly mamed the US Dept. of War. Now War is defense, aggression is Humanitarian Intervention, resistance is terrorism. Of course the piece de resistance, The IDF, the most moral Army in the world.

I know it’s no laughing matter, but a comedy source is what I think of every time I read of or hear of some new outrage committed by israel and the zionists – Mermaid Man pops into my mind going “Evil Evil Evil Evil Evil Evil Evil“

Isn’t Ramallah supposedly the so called “Provincial” Capitol of the so-called President Abbas’s State. Where were his armed thugs, {Security Forces} while this was going on. Too busy imprisoning Palestinian dissidents?

So you wanted his armed thugs to confront the armed thugs of Israel, who have access to a near infinite stockpile of weapons, using their peashooters. An army who are backed by a corrupt legal system which allows them to do what they want, whilst Palestinian children are detained without trial? Abbas doesn’t have a state, he is the leader chosen by Israel, not the Palestinians.

JWP, I agree with your points. You misstook my, I thought, evident sarcasm about Abbas and his so called “Presidency” and “State.” Abbas is the “chosen” leader , chosen by Israel and the US. To me his actions over the years are of collaboration with the Israeli’s and the Occupation. His “armed thugs” , “security” forces do nothing to protect the Palestinian people. They are there to protect Israel from organized resistance against occupation and collaborate with Israeli intelligence services by informing on Palestinian dissidents. Abbas’s term in office ended in January of 2009. The man has no shame.

It would seem to be their right, jwp. Even under the seemingly discarded Oslo territorial setup. Clearly Israel could call in tanks or some such, but they’d have to justify it in terms of abrogating Oslo (Oslo being to Israel’s advantage).

I bring up the Areas involved because it shows, at least to me, that the PA is totally subservient and/or subordinate to Israel. If the PA wanted to make a stand, even a perfunctory stand, they could and would. It would be within their rights, but they don’t. Ever.

What a waste.

It’s over. Something new will, and/or has to, take its place. Some new determination or realization or something, on the Palestinians’ part. I know that’s a generic observation, but it’s a festering problem that will engender its own successor, and I have no idea what that successor might be, so generic it is…

It is little consolation perhaps but these outrages are receiving wide coverage outside the US. Google ‘israeli army raids ngo’. There is a tide of implicitly anti-Israeli stuff building up from all directions. Soon it could resemble being attacked not by a couple of wasps but by a swarm.

The bots can handle isolated cases of opposition- get the person sacked, call her an antisemite, that sort of thing. But what it can’t manage is mass criticism. It is only a matter of time before key Jews turn away from Ziobotulism and the whole thing starts to blow up.

Israel and their online activist warriors might as well give up. Nothing they try works….the net, social media, instant universal communications, have totally blown their off ‘shoot and cry’ Jewish State holocaust and victim cloak. When I look at general msm comment boards what I see is the more they spout their hasbara propaganda the more they are ridiculed by everyone. All the lipstick in the world won’t cover this pig.

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